This is a composition by John Cage. He is, in my opinion, one of the most fascinating composers of all time. He is mostly known for his composition called 4’33.” When performing 4’33” the pianist sits at the piano closes the lid and doesn’t play for exactly four minutes and thirty-three seconds. John Cage spent time in Europe as a young man and studied architecture and painting, but found he could not really devote his life to either. He returned to the U.S in the 1930s and studied composition with composer and music theorist Arnold Schoenberg. After a while Schoenberg decided that Cage had no ear for harmony. He felt harmony was much more structural and less coloristic. Schoenberg told him he would never be able to write music and when Cage asked why he said, “ You’ll come to a wall you won’t be able to get through.” Then I’ll spend the rest of my life knocking on that wall,” he replied.
In the 1930s he was considered a leader in avant-garde music. He mostly composed pieces for percussion groups and for what was called “prepared piano.” A prepared piano is a piano with various objects inserted between the strings for percussive effects (click on the link to watch someone prepare a piano, it’s insane!). He used erasers, washers, screws, and whatever he had on hand.
He is known for pushing the boundaries of music and always referred to his career as “an exploration of non-intention.” Schoenberg hated all of his students and never said anything about any of them except for Cage. “John Cage is not a composer, but an inventor of genius.”
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